Qeya River i like it when the bite marks cut through the skin.

intended for @Sun Eater but all welcome! @Blackfell and @Meleeys arrive with her but may disperse upon arrival.

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the journey back to saatsine is a quiet one. gjalla carries stark’s severed head between her jaws.

it has begun to fester, skin peeling from flesh in places where decay has taken root. his face is twisted in something ugly—mid-scream, mid-thought, mid-fear. his last eye ripped from its socket, leaving only crimson that ran down his cheek. and his mouth hangs open, as if his last words had never quite left his tongue. her breath hisses through flared nostrils when the stink of rot becomes overbearing (which was often).

she grips him tightly, carried by the scrap of scruff behind his ears. the weight of him is an anchor, but she carries it without complaint, without faltering. the iron tang of old blood has seeped into her gums, a taste she has long since ceased to notice. 

blackfell is beside her, meleeys on the either. they do not speak, they do not dare break the quiet. she does not stop. she does not slow. 

gjalla pads through saatsine with stark’s rotting head hanging from her jaws, all the way to where sun eater rested. when she reaches the center of it all, she stops, loosens her jaw.

stark’s head hits the frozen ground with a sickening thud. gjalla does not blink.

she stands tall, chin raised, shoulders squared. blood still mats her fur, though the worst of it was washed away in the lake. she reeks of death, but she wears it like a mantle, a crown. let her be the queen of death, if they needed one.

"gift."